People
Find out more about the people behind the centre and the exciting careers that our students go on to pursue thanks to the training they receive.
Clinical partners
Sheffield Diagnostic Genetics Service (SDGS), Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust
SDGS includes both cytogenetic and molecular genetic disciplines, delivering first-class genomic analysis services to the UK and internationally for a wide variety of inherited and acquired genetic disorders. SDGS is a UKAS accredited medical laboratory (No. 8652). Please see the Laboratory medicine page and UKAS Website for more details. The laboratory participates in external quality assessment schemes including GenQA, UKNEQAS, EMQN.
Students and alumni
Since 2016, we've been training students through hospital-based and virtual clinical work placements in partnership with the Sheffield Genetics Diagnostic Service, providing them with the skills and knowledge to support the analytical evaluation of live patient samples referred for oncology investigations.
These work placements were used as a foundation for the Julia Garnham Centre, which was created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The centre is a joint University NHS space that has been specifically designed to support work placements with clinical partners across the UK, and improve access to these for students.
Where are our students now?
Our students go on to do great things and to date, these work placements have led to many students securing genetics jobs in the NHS. We also have a strong track record of our students progressing to the NHS flagship Scientist Training Programmes in Genomics and Cancer Genomics.
Our students also put their skills to good use working in other areas of healthcare, in industrial labs and taking the next step into a PhD or further study in areas such as medicine or nursing.
Meet our students
Student placements
Sheffield Diagnostic Genetic Service (SDGS) has collaborated with the University of Sheffield to establish the Julia Garnham Centre (JGC). This is a unique remote placements facility located in the School of Biosciences at the University of Sheffield.
Named after long-term former SDGS staff member, this placement centre provides students with essential experience and training in genetic analysis and upskills the next generation of genomic scientists and technologists. The students are then welcomed to a placement with SDGS to prepare cases (currently focussing on karyotyping of bone marrow samples from haemato-oncology referrals), making them ready for NHS Healthcare Scientists to analyse, and thereby releasing staff time and helping to manage backlogs. For further information please contact Duncan.Baker@nhs.net.